RadixJournal - Disclosure Day (2026)

00:00:00.000 But I would say one thing about this, our inaugural episode in the relaunch of Unconscious Cinema, this will be a slightly unusual one because Disclosure Day, directed by Steven Spielberg, is just released now in theaters.

00:00:25.480 So I actually saw it last night on the big screen.

00:00:30.280 And so for a film that we would want to look at in the future of this podcast, I think

00:00:40.240 watching it three, four, five times is really necessary in order to delve into it and come

00:00:50.060 to a solid interpretation.

00:00:51.780 and it's certainly the first time I watch a movie I like to just not take notes just sort of

00:00:59.320 take it all in turn off my analytical mind enjoy it you know just sort of get a first impression

00:01:07.120 of it and then afterwards start to think about what's going on and so that's exactly what I did

00:01:14.900 last night and i i would imagine that's more or less what mark has done as well so i think this

00:01:21.820 first episode of disclosure day might be a little bit of a rough draft in the sense that we are

00:01:30.740 starting out on our journey in terms of interpreting the film and so on but you know

00:01:38.280 it's it's also very timely as well you're right i mean we could as far as the details are concerned

00:01:45.700 um it this probably won't be the most thorough going but on the other hand uh i think that

00:01:52.800 we'll probably nail the upshot pretty clearly because i think this is one of his like

00:01:56.940 yeah least sort of disguised uh alien films in terms of theme and meaning

00:02:03.240 i i i i agree with that i i one thing that i was thinking afterward is that there there is a

00:02:11.640 a kind of artistic benefit to doing a fairy tale and et has a lot of qualities of the fairy tale

00:02:22.160 you know beginning with the fact that it's from the point of view of uh of children and um you

00:02:30.460 You know, there are ways in which it's all sort of a metaphor.

00:02:35.620 I think the audience gives you a lot of the benefit of the doubt

00:02:38.620 when, you know, it's kids and magic and so on.

00:02:43.960 You're sort of not delving into it too much.

00:02:47.520 This film was shocking in the sense,

00:02:52.060 I mean, it's coming very late in Spielberg's career.

00:02:54.400 He's actually pushing 80,

00:02:56.560 much like our president and our last president. 1.00

00:02:59.720 you know it's it's a baby boomers world and we're just living in it um they're never going away but 0.99

00:03:05.900 um so it's a very late you know film in his career and there is a way in which it is extremely 1.00

00:03:16.720 explicit and just on the nose um at the end of the film they just bring they show images

00:03:25.800 of aliens being captured and crashed ships and torturing of these poor gray creatures and and

00:03:34.240 then you just meet one i mean that's the end of the film they just roll out a wheelchair 0.97

00:03:39.040 significant perhaps i would imagine mark but they just roll out a wheelchair and there's a gigantic

00:03:47.820 gray alien on it and he says hello so there is a way in which the verisimilitude makes this a very

00:03:58.060 difficult film to pull off in the sense that i and i've seen some reviews i the critics uh more

00:04:06.380 mainstream critics had good things to say about it i've seen some hate online uh i'll just give

00:04:14.740 you my first impression here and then mark you can jump in i don't think this is a great

00:04:21.820 spielberg film uh it is interesting in terms of the rem or jm in this case but um i would

00:04:32.040 give spielberg some credit here uh in the hands of another filmmaker i think this type of thing

00:04:40.700 would just be ridiculous and totally cringe and uninteresting uh maybe oliver stone jfk style

00:04:52.160 could kind of get away with it by mixing you know new footage and newsreels and stuff like that 0.69

00:04:59.040 perhaps but i think this could be a very bad film in the hands of another filmmaker

00:05:03.360 uh spielberg yeah this isn't as memorable as et um or even close encounters which i think is a

00:05:13.800 bit of a lesser film in my opinion i don't think it is as good as uh ai which is a lesser known

00:05:22.960 film by spielberg but one that i definitely enjoy i don't think it's as good as any of of those in

00:05:30.180 fact but he still does have some magic and i'm not sure other people could pull off

00:05:37.800 this sort of explicit quality of disclosure day of yes they're aliens he can still make a thrilling

00:05:48.300 action sequence and i think there's a lot of magic there of you know empathy is a big theme

00:05:56.060 in the film that magic of you know going back to your childhood and loving another person and you

00:06:04.460 know the fact is this is not great but i sort of went with it so i don't i don't want to bash the

00:06:13.120 film just as a film uh but the age is showing you know john williams actually wrote the score

00:06:19.660 and he is older than Spielberg

00:06:22.940 and I didn't even notice his music.

00:06:27.080 Arguably, that's a good thing,

00:06:28.260 but John Williams has written some banger melodies

00:06:34.220 for Indiana Jones or Star Wars or E.T.

00:06:38.440 and this entire score,

00:06:41.160 I have already forgotten it.

00:06:44.760 I do feel like these people are aging,

00:06:47.560 but i i also think it'd be wrong to say that they're bad or anything like that i i i think

00:06:54.860 this this is a good movie if not a great one those are sort of my opening impressions

00:07:01.200 yeah well i mean the problem is if you call it hackneyed or just full of like familiar tropes

00:07:07.760 the problem is that he he's responsible for inventing a lot of those tropes right yeah so

00:07:13.720 he's sort of a victim of his own um yeah it feels like a film that was made in the late 80s or

00:07:20.000 whatever right yeah so and i don't so it's of that style essentially but has he lost his touch

00:07:28.380 i mean it's not it's he's just more kind of trapped in time it seems correct if that makes

00:07:34.560 sense to you so it's it's kind of he's it's like maybe an oldie but goodie though i don't i agree

00:07:40.300 with you i mean i think it's like we've already heard this song so it's kind of like okay we've

00:07:44.680 already done this before um so it's inherently less interesting um so yeah in to our sensibilities

00:07:54.000 it is to the kind of more evolved 2026 sensibility it's it is more where there's more cynicism

00:08:02.620 and we have less tolerance for the kind of mockishness that we encounter in the film and

00:08:07.400 so forth it is a little cringe i guess you could say right um but whatever i mean i i think that

00:08:15.440 um from our point of view i think it's definitely interesting uh to analyze it as a work of gem

00:08:22.240 uh and to look at the symbolism in the film because it's full of symbolism and it's it's

00:08:29.700 revealing in this regard so it's aiming conventions are in full yeah i think yeah i think from our i

00:08:35.880 think i i think it's like i mean it's a but i don't know i think i feel like we're so advanced

00:08:43.000 now in terms of understanding these symbols right uh we can always learn new things of course but

00:08:49.440 this one feels like kind of an easy one it feels like kind of a slam dunk yeah um but that's that

00:08:56.160 is because of our experience in the time that we've spent analyzing texts like this um so

00:09:04.420 But in any case

00:09:06.300 So it is interesting to us

00:09:08.060 But I think it is

00:09:09.740 A broadcast like this

00:09:12.480 Will be useful because I think it is

00:09:14.580 Relatively more explicit

00:09:15.820 So people will be like ah okay

00:09:18.040 These guys are right because this is an easy one

00:09:20.420 So the easy ones are good in that way

00:09:23.100 Because someone can say

00:09:24.760 Hey this is what the film is about

00:09:26.840 Listen to this podcast

00:09:27.960 And they can refer to a buddy

00:09:29.380 Because the things that we regard

00:09:32.640 As obvious

00:09:34.420 most people don't regard it as obvious or that's what we forget or or they're oblivious to it

00:09:41.440 they're you know they haven't been initiated as it were right yeah two two quick uh points here

00:09:48.360 on this uh real quick because i want to get this out of the way uh you mentioned that this feels

00:09:53.960 like it came out in the late 80s maybe or 90s or 2000s i agree with that and i i think they're

00:10:00.700 this is written by david cope or kepp um who wrote jurassic park he wrote indiana jones and

00:10:10.020 the kingdom of the crystal skull so you know which is not well received but is a very interesting

00:10:15.980 film symbolically um and he's an older person himself i a lot of people have noticed this of

00:10:25.140 um the fact that it's all about getting proof of aliens to the mainstream media it's like

00:10:31.820 if only mbc would cover this there there is something i guess a little bit funny about that

00:10:39.200 in this day and age in terms of the massive distrust of um the mainstream media it seems

00:10:46.520 like almost this would be the last thing that he would do he would release it online or give it to

00:10:52.300 WikiLeaks or I don't know uh I do think it it's from a generation that's a little bit lost in

00:11:00.820 time there's they're still living in the cold war the 1990s or or something like that uh but you

00:11:07.160 know fair enough it's a plot problem perhaps perhaps Spielberg is a conservative of a kind

00:11:16.100 of a sort he's a liberal conservative who thinks that we should be listening to CNN and um

00:11:22.300 and so on so uh there's a kind of wistful nostalgia it seems right yeah for a different

00:11:29.760 america he misses this or stability of that legacy media yeah yeah yeah absolutely um there

00:11:37.920 was that the the other thing to go a little bit deeper i i noticed some people who um

00:11:43.360 there and and this will kind of let us launch into an interpretation because a lot of them would say

00:11:49.940 like oh you know it's now like the aliens are replacing god or something and there was actually

00:11:56.540 an interview with uh spielberg who at least in this interview one would get the impression that

00:12:03.300 he's not just interested in ufos but he just buys into them hook line and sinker like he's a ufo

00:12:09.940 ologist and basically what um spielberg said is that you know this might make you question your

00:12:17.540 faith. But also, we should look beyond just the earth and God that we're all searching for is not

00:12:26.180 just the God of us, but he's the God of everyone in the universe. And of course, the conservatives

00:12:33.540 willfully or perhaps stupidly just misread this. And they're like, oh, yeah, liberal Spielberg 0.99

00:12:43.780 wants us to abandon Christianity and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. And it's like,

00:12:49.940 you just don't get it, do you? Like, I can't help you if this is your response. You're taking

00:12:57.160 Christianity in a literal fashion, and you're not seeing this metaphor that Spielberg is actually

00:13:06.800 helpfully spelling out for you, in fact, in these interviews. He's giving you step

00:13:13.620 one for the interpretation allowing you to go the whole way and they of course reject this help and

00:13:19.600 declare that he's a liberal atheist or whatever they're they're saying he's a jew he wants to make

00:13:24.720 you question christianity um this is one of the most just over the top uh pro-christian and pro

00:13:32.880 judaism films that i've ever seen uh it's not one of these it's not like an angel studios flick where

00:13:41.400 it's sort of literally about Christians. It's a Hollywood movie, but it is imbued with actually a

00:13:51.920 profound respect for Christianity and Judaism. And I think Islam might, unless I'm missing 0.63

00:13:58.780 something, Islam might be left out of the mix, but profound respect for Christianity and Judaism.

00:14:04.500 I think those two religions are embodied in the two main characters, in my opinion. We'll see

00:14:10.020 what you think and um i i just i guess it never ceases to amaze me the degree to which christians

00:14:18.500 just or or modern public self-styled christian conservatives just miss the boat basically

00:14:26.220 yeah it is i mean it is remarkable i i mean i i just think the guys must be being insincere

00:14:36.420 and think that there's some value in creating an alien myth right you know i don't know i i

00:14:44.180 because he strikes me as too intelligent to actually believe in any of this alien

00:14:48.240 hogwash but maybe maybe that's incorrect right because people are strange but i think it's

00:14:56.080 probably more likely he's sort of cynically part of this desire to create a kind of alien cosmology

00:15:02.820 and as we'll get into in the analysis i mean the sort of subtext of that is that there there's a

00:15:09.980 superior extraterrestrial i.e jews right or jewry or yahweh uh that is you know that we that we

00:15:20.100 should be sort of the messenger of the these aliens this is the kind of demoralizing mythos

00:15:26.420 is that we're not the top dog in the high art we're not the top dog essentially right there's

00:15:32.600 someone above us yes formerly we call that yahweh or we call that god now we call this sort of

00:15:39.960 invented alien cosmology essentially yes and the other thing the

00:15:45.800 the context that this comes in in terms of just contemporary history really is remarkable because

00:15:54.820 we have seen Disclosure Day. During COVID, there was disclosure of so-called UAPs,

00:16:04.060 Unidentified Aerial Phenomenon is sort of the more politically correct name or maybe more

00:16:09.660 accurate name. And I looked at the stuff and I think they're birds, basically. It's just a bunch

00:16:18.660 of low flying birds i'm sorry um it's all grainy footage i'm not terribly impressed and the trump

00:16:26.940 movement in 2024 was like we got to release the files you know epstein jfk mlk the ufo files they've

00:16:34.780 got to come amelia earhart too that that as well um and we get these files released and they they

00:16:43.480 are maybe interesting but there are also perfectly reasonable explanations for what you are seeing

00:16:52.840 and i have not seen anything resembling what is aliens that is and um but this film comes in the

00:17:05.640 context of that it's like a novelization of real life uh happening real time we have this

00:17:13.720 this notion has been baked in at the very least since the 90s and i and i think it it goes back

00:17:21.780 to the 70s even with a um a lot of films that were sort of paranoid cinema that were coming out at

00:17:30.400 that point, that the government is hiding these secrets and that there's some hero, maybe an

00:17:35.800 insider, maybe a journalist or someone who just releases it to the public and it changes everything.

00:17:41.660 Or in the case of Disclosure Day, we're on the threshold of World War III, you know, Russia and

00:17:48.780 the European Union are about to fight or something like this. We don't get told exactly what's

00:17:54.360 happening, but it seems ripped from the headlines, of course. And there's this notion that this

00:18:00.120 disclosure uh that we are not alone that there are there are this intelligent life in the universe

00:18:06.260 sort of makes a step back and stop engaging in these petty feuds and look to the stars or towards

00:18:14.500 a higher power and seek peace this seem seems to be the sort of overall geopolitical plot and

00:18:21.340 and uh an upshot of all this and so this film is i i don't know it's not

00:18:30.200 terribly edgy in the sense that this all of this stuff is happening right now and

00:18:40.680 there is a amazing interest in ufos in congress there was a guy who came and testified to congress

00:18:51.080 He, of course, has no evidence outside of secondhand hearsay, but this is all taken, and he might be mentally impaired, but we just take it very seriously, like, oh my gosh, we are not alone in the universe.

00:19:04.940 This guy knew a guy who knew a guy who saw an alien, and on Fox News, there are reports of the Nords and the Greys and the reptilians and insectoids.

00:19:17.280 this is all now sort of real even though this is lore that you might find on reddit uh this is

00:19:24.380 sort of where we are or that you would find in like well vatsky's writing right or robert e

00:19:31.540 howard uh you know species that robert e howard created i mean literally there are like kind of

00:19:37.840 fictive origins to these species that are traceable that you can find whether there are

00:19:42.680 accounts that people are these sort of you know unrealistic hoax accounts that people have

00:19:48.680 fabricated and are presenting as real accounts of alien encounters or they're like just taken

00:19:54.620 directly from fiction essentially right so it is traceable all these these like races are traceable

00:20:01.920 and it does seem like i mean interestingly kind of conveniently enough it seems like

00:20:06.420 the races become avatars for different races on on planet earth right yeah i mean i guess we get

00:20:13.180 the cool one we get the tall nords they're even called the tall whites or the nordic aliens right 0.94

00:20:18.060 yeah so i guess we get the cool ones um but then there's the grays who could have they could have

00:20:23.840 some significance it seems like they're kind of jewish coded in um uh spielberg's pantheon i think

00:20:30.700 they are for spielberg at the very least yeah there's a sort of long history of the grays they

00:20:35.500 they were on television and then hollywood started to pick them up and pop culture it's the gray

00:20:40.480 alien which sort of is yeah and as early as um close encounters i think i pointed this out when

00:20:46.880 we reviewed close encounters um and it's just something that occurred to me visually it just

00:20:51.460 seemed like they were like inmates in auschwitz or something yeah marching from that ship just

00:20:56.300 because they were so rail thin yeah and so i wondered in maybe just from a kind of young

00:21:01.680 perspective maybe footage like that or images like that influenced um spielberg yeah and of

00:21:09.600 course and then later he'll basically develop aliens as these sort of benevolent beings especially

00:21:15.860 with et uh he also does war of the world where they are more belligerent and there's a theory

00:21:23.140 that are they're entirely belligerent but there is a theory there that he's it's basically a

00:21:28.460 It's a kind of Islamophobia going on in that film, right?

00:21:34.400 In any case, so they were both good and bad aliens in his overall sort of pantheon that he's developed.

00:21:43.320 But more consistently, it seems like they're sort of good or benevolent creatures, especially in this film, coming down to teach man, to give him technology, much like Prometheus gives technology and fire and writing to man.

00:21:58.280 and so forth to play a kind of promethean role essentially vis-a-vis a man essentially yeah right

00:22:05.380 so um yeah so i i and i think it's clear it's clear in his other films but i think it becomes

00:22:14.660 very clear in this film what's going on that essentially they're metaphorical jews right

00:22:21.560 the aliens are these metaphorical jews that are being persecuted but then it's deeper than that

00:22:27.820 there are more layers there of course as well where uh this ward x i think may become a metaphor

00:22:34.680 even for potentially for the catholic church on some level right to kind of parallel metaphor

00:22:41.600 going on in the film where you explicitly have the catholic church but then you have ward x

00:22:46.580 which may represent something like the catholic church and they have the play on words

00:22:52.320 Palantir, maybe, or some sort of military industrial complex.

00:22:56.840 I'm thinking ward.

00:22:58.100 Ward is guard, or, you know, guard.

00:23:00.640 So something's being guarded.

00:23:01.960 What's being guarded?

00:23:03.180 X is being guarded.

00:23:05.020 X becomes a symbol for the cross, right?

00:23:07.880 Yeah.

00:23:08.820 So, I mean, that's a theory.

00:23:11.460 In any case, I'll let you.

00:23:14.320 Yeah, well, we can go on this.

00:23:16.240 I mean, the television station where they announced the aliens is KCEX.

00:23:20.780 um and yes x for the cross um we uh this is actually a little bit of this is in

00:23:29.840 i think probably volume two of the book um but uh we you know we say christmas so x right there

00:23:36.480 xmas is sort of an abbreviation for christmas it's commonly used and um so it is uh it is christ x

00:23:45.000 uh the cross uh i i think there's a lot there um there yeah if you look up x in the in the

00:23:52.140 dictionary it'll be one of the meanings will be uh christian or christ right i'll let you continue

00:23:58.840 yeah uh uh definitely yeah just to go back on some other things you were saying i guess before

00:24:04.820 we delve the orthodox cross is an x the orthodox cross is an x i'll let you continue yeah yeah

00:24:10.820 just to go back to a couple of things that we were you you were talking about in terms of

00:24:17.060 prometheus prometheus as a outside force that is giving gifts to mankind of technology or

00:24:25.340 enlightenment etc this is a very common metaphor uh it's a common metaphor in spielberg but it's

00:24:33.160 common metaphor in kubrick and there's a deep connection between spielberg and kubrick

00:24:37.040 The movie AI brings those two things together, that Kubrick was developing that film for some time. He died shortly after completing Eyes Wide Shut, and then Spielberg picked up the ball and took it across the goal line and created that movie in a very Spielbergian fashion.

00:24:57.460 uh probably not how the it was not how the movie would have looked like if Kubrick had

00:25:04.380 fully developed it but you do get a glimpse of of Kubrick there and I mean it's you know

00:25:12.540 it's interesting because 2001 was on a very basic level a propaganda film for NASA and

00:25:23.440 you can think of this time of we're going for it we won the second world war we have the most

00:25:33.160 prosperous scientifically advanced country on the planet but the greatest country there ever was

00:25:40.220 the u.s of a and we're going to be headed to the moon soon 2001 actually came out before the moon

00:25:45.960 landing and new frontiers we're just going to go out there and find new galaxies and so on

00:25:53.180 uh 2001 isn't like that it's very different you start out famously in with prehistoric man with

00:26:03.340 some with a man who's not even quite a man yet and he's more of an ape than a man and there is this

00:26:10.100 black monolith that descends and the it's all done visually but the very strong implication

00:26:19.320 is that man is being enlightened,

00:26:22.700 that man could have stayed in that state of Moonwatcher.

00:26:27.100 Very interesting name, Moonwatcher.

00:26:28.820 He could have stayed in that state forever,

00:26:31.760 as animals do now.

00:26:33.840 Birds have been making nests for millions of years,

00:26:36.800 and there's no need for them to progress beyond that.

00:26:39.180 But there's this outside force that enlightens the apes, 0.69

00:26:43.660 and they learn technology and violence

00:26:47.920 is maybe a sort of darker, you know, lesson that Kubrick is saying there. The first thing they

00:26:56.240 learn to do when they're harnessing technology is to have a bone that becomes a club and they can

00:27:03.360 hunt with that bone. They can kill other ape men with that bone and have dominance. And then, 0.93

00:27:10.140 you know, the most famous scene in the film where the bone is turning around and then turns the

00:27:15.980 other way, it becomes a spaceship. And in 10,000 years or so, or 20,000 years, it doesn't matter

00:27:22.780 that much, that first impulse towards technology ends up in a space shuttle. And it's a space

00:27:30.820 shuttle that is dangerous and weaponized and part of an ongoing Cold War with the Soviet Union,

00:27:38.600 one that might threaten the survival of mankind. I mean, it's a sort of, it's a dark truth, but

00:27:44.280 the truth is still that man is enlightened by an outside entity and the fact that it is all black

00:27:53.160 that it comes in alignment with the daytime moon interestingly and um you could see it as a

00:28:02.580 stone tablet as it were um the the gem reading of the monolith is that it is either a you know

00:28:14.260 stone tablet given to Moses by Yahweh, or it's just almost Yahweh himself descended among these

00:28:22.660 men. And David Bowman, interesting name, King David, greatest king of the Jews, the line that

00:28:29.560 will birth Jesus. Bowman, Odyssey, you know, Bowman. It is a space odyssey is the subtitle

00:28:39.160 of the film so it's evoking uh this figure from odysseus the trickster the man of twist and turns

00:28:46.160 etc yeah yuri slutskin calls audit uh odysseus the most jewish of greek heroes he's a um a

00:28:54.640 descendant of mercury or hermes yes grandson or great-grandson i can't remember which but he has

00:29:00.920 these mercurian traits as slutskin would describe them um i'll let you continue yeah

00:29:08.800 And so going – so what's the new enlightenment for mankind post-2001 is the star child reborn.

00:29:19.740 You are a sort of uber mensch.

00:29:22.460 I think there's definitely some references to Nietzsche going on there.

00:29:25.920 But you're reborn but after a new enlightenment.

00:29:30.940 And so we see David Bowman as an old man in this room that's sort of Western civilization.

00:29:36.700 And he's reaching out towards the monolith again and then becomes the star child. So once again, it's not like he's moved beyond Yahweh or Judaism. He's traveled a huge distance to come home, to reconnect with Yahweh, and then there's going to be some sort of next stage of enlightenment.

00:29:56.580 And so I guess this is a long way of saying that the idea of coding aliens as Jews is not unusual for Kubrick or Spielberg in AI, the sort of AI alien. 0.59

00:30:15.320 it's a sort of variation on an alien another benign creature that can teach us something is

00:30:21.320 named david um uh close encounters of the third kind you have um a evocation of mount sinai with

00:30:30.440 the devil's tower clear evocation of mount sinai with the devil's tower in wyoming and um and and

00:30:38.840 you have richard dreyfus's character sort of going climbing up mount sinai to make contact again

00:30:45.140 And I agree, it's sort of a visual or Jungian interpretation, but these gray aliens coming out with their arms and so on, it does one reading of that would be that he's reconnecting or connecting for the first time with Holocaust survivors or or something like that.

00:31:04.200 so there's that's true but when we're seeing this film though you wonder if he you know you

00:31:10.200 wonder if he was kind of he he calls this film a kind of summation of all his alien films so you

00:31:15.940 wonder if he had this kind of idea in mind right so in other words is it could even be a conscious

00:31:21.340 reference uh to the holocaust yeah yeah very much so because in this film it seems like it is a

00:31:29.240 conscious reference essentially to the holocaust or to jewish persecution generally because they've

00:31:34.760 been suffering yeah and that also that could include also the suffering of early christians

00:31:40.220 right the saints and so forth absolutely uh so real quick i think we could maybe even start with

00:31:49.880 names and then uh kind of branch off from there but just a very brief uh synopsis uh of the film

00:32:00.600 uh there is a um man named uh daniel kelner uh i do think daniel is a significant name there and

00:32:11.260 um dr daniel kelner um played by josh o'connor a sort of unknown actor uh he was um recently in

00:32:19.400 that Knives Out movie. But he you we first encounter him and his girlfriend who is named

00:32:30.440 Jane Blankenship Blankenship and they're actually at a wrestling match. And so the opening scene of

00:32:41.820 the film is a wrestler like stomping on the camera. There's a sort of evocation of of maybe

00:32:49.320 a kayfabe of this false you know caducean serpents attacking one another and you see that

00:32:58.180 again with there's a war going on between russia and the eu or something like this and uh basically

00:33:04.580 a sort of match that's taking place but it's synthetic it's not the real conflict it's it's

00:33:11.320 fake and um he has stolen uh information that is video documentation um and some alien technology

00:33:23.160 from the ward x uh lab you know military industrial complex thing and he is being uh chased by colin

00:33:32.480 first character who's actually named noah scanlon um so the naming conventions are here a bit on the

00:33:41.000 nose as it were uh and they go on a series of chases um there's another there's a another plot

00:33:50.940 that's of equal importance involving emily blunt um her name is margaret fair child fair child i

00:33:58.420 think there's even a evocation of the star child um and yeah but i would say that it's also a kind

00:34:05.820 racial designation as well fair yes yeah yeah yeah i think daniel is not arian uh in my the

00:34:14.460 actor actually is he's irish but i don't think daniel is either yes well i'm glad that my

00:34:21.140 instincts were being corroborated by yours but um but they're kind of connected they're not a

00:34:27.460 love interest but they're they're connected in a shared experience and friendship yeah yeah

00:34:33.020 blankenship is a little more ambiguous her character is a little more ambiguous jane

00:34:37.120 blankenship but um and there's this whole episode where her eye color is changing from brown to blue

00:34:43.460 i don't know if you noticed that well her blue her eyes were blue okay and and so noah scanlan

00:34:50.320 has brown eyes colin firth has brown eyes and so he's so basically well let me just sum up real

00:34:57.080 quick so long story short the whole film is basically a chase and uh fair child is able to

00:35:05.060 have extreme empathy to the point that she can get into someone's head she knows that you know

00:35:12.280 this man is having trouble with his son and needs to reconnect with them she knows that this woman

00:35:18.540 has a is being abused by her husband she needs to leave she just knows everyone she knows where to

00:35:25.340 drive where to go she can speak all languages and this came about after seeing a cardinal a bird

00:35:30.620 interesting um and basically there's sort of two chases going on you have this amazing woman who

00:35:38.680 is connected to all mankind total empathy and then you have this man daniel who has the goods he he

00:35:47.440 can understand the language of the aliens and he has all the documentation and they their plots

00:35:56.860 you know intertwine and the end of the film is Daniel releasing all this stuff to the mainstream

00:36:03.480 media and Fairchild communicating uh to everyone with her amazing empathetic powers and uh boom

00:36:14.960 And then there's a big gray that comes in on a wheelchair and has giant eyes. 0.66

00:36:21.380 Their powers of manipulation, basically, right? 0.98

00:36:25.860 That's the plot in a nutshell.

00:36:28.540 But to go back to what Mark was saying, and then I'll let you go on this, because this was a very provocative scene.

00:36:35.980 But Noah, the antagonist in the film, is using that empathetic power of the aliens.

00:36:43.880 He's actually holding on to this like magic wand, basically a stick kind of thing. And he is able to sort of possess almost demonically other people. He can kind of get in their head and talk to them, but then he can almost become them.

00:36:58.940 And this is visually articulated to us by Spielberg by the eye color changes. And so Jane, who is a Catholic, not, I don't think it's Jewish. I don't think that's implied. Jane Blankenship is Catholic. She was actually a nun, but she couldn't, she didn't like, she was, she didn't know if Jesus was, she thought Jesus was good and wonderful, but maybe not God. 0.76

00:37:24.780 i think that was her crisis of faith and she's now a normal woman and um she a lay woman i should

00:37:32.420 say and she's in this relationship uh with daniel and uh no evil noah is like possessing her and

00:37:41.140 in and this is visually shown by spielberg by their eye color changes which is interesting

00:37:46.320 blue eyes but i'll let you go on that mark if you want to yeah i know i mean i so the one i found

00:37:53.220 one i mean i so i found various meanings for blankenship but one that i found compelling was

00:38:00.240 white sheep so it would be similar to uh fairchild and i think they seem to be kind of parallel

00:38:08.420 characters as well and uh fairchild margaret fairchild as a broadcaster is a kind of priest

00:38:16.060 i mean we've discussed this before like the journalist as the priest it becomes it's almost

00:38:21.020 a kind of trope in gemma seems we have clark kent and uh clark means uh clergy or priest right yeah

00:38:30.120 yeah and kent maybe means white so white priest so it's kind of his face his his sort of white

00:38:36.180 or gentile face in his cryptos right um but with um uh margaret margaret uh fairfield so she becomes

00:38:45.680 the ambassador. And I think that there's something meaningful about this. It's the concept

00:38:51.560 that MacDonald uses in his book of the Gentile front man, effectively, is what we're seeing, 0.55

00:38:57.780 right? But we also see it in the Hebrew Bible with, I would argue with Aaron, right? Aaron

00:39:03.180 becomes a kind of front man for Moses and especially Yahweh. But the concept of an angel

00:39:11.120 also is the concept of a messenger. In fact, the name angel

00:39:15.280 comes from a Greek word meaning messenger, right? So an angel

00:39:19.260 just means messenger. But that's what she is. She's a messenger.

00:39:23.160 But her name becomes meaningful because it's sort of like, well, we have to make 0.80

00:39:27.340 the sort of Gentiles our messenger. That's how we win. 0.99

00:39:31.280 That's how we convert the masses or we control the masses

00:39:35.120 with our own ideas is by having the front man,

00:39:39.220 essentially the fair child as the one that basically introduces the message that can be

00:39:45.260 trusted by the masses and so forth right i mean that's my kind of reading of it essentially

00:39:50.880 do you think just blank ship as well it's it's sort of it goes to that like white blank quality

00:39:58.780 of the ship but it's a ship uh ship of state i don't know that that's also a metaphor going on

00:40:05.300 there yeah sure no i mean and there could be so you know multiple things could be intended with

00:40:12.540 the name right so in other words the name could have two different layers and he could be he could

00:40:17.460 be working with multiple meanings of the name and it could just be perfect on a number of levels

00:40:21.920 right um so one one compelling uh theory as to the etymology of the name is um white sheep which

00:40:33.960 i think is you know in the context of the film i think it's it's notable but i yeah i'm not that's

00:40:38.880 not the discount you're reading of it at all either you know i mean there is there is discussion

00:40:45.640 in the film that like well the aliens have to appear as animals right in order to be seen benign

00:40:51.180 or innocuous but on some level what spielberg is saying is that they have to appear as gentiles

00:40:56.520 or they have to engage in krypsis essentially as a kind of lower form essentially and so the animals

00:41:03.580 also become metaphors for gentiles as we encounter elsewhere in gem especially through

00:41:09.160 decipherment of the hebrew bible and so forth right so i think that that's what's being implied

00:41:16.200 with this metaphor that the aliens appear as animals so it's a metaphor for jewish cryptos

00:41:22.980 essentially i i guess the cardinal is the most on the nose because the cardinal that's actually a

00:41:28.780 that's like a title that's the title in the catholic church second to the pope right yes

00:41:35.040 it's an ecclesiastical uh title it's a priest title but cardinals are second only to the pope

00:41:43.820 they're way up in the church uh so i so i think that that metaphor is very much on the nose and

00:41:50.280 that also helps us understand that it is a parallel metaphor, right? So Ward X becomes

00:42:00.160 the Catholic Church. And there's, are the aliens, are the saints, the aliens are the 0.77

00:42:07.840 Jews that are being sort of abused by this like Gentile organization that's taking their 1.00

00:42:16.480 power and taking their magic and misusing it essentially uh so what really needs to happen 0.99

00:42:22.700 is that we need to commune directly with the jews and they need to assert like sort of direct 1.00

00:42:27.160 control over us essentially yeah i mean it seems like that is essentially what's going on there 0.97

00:42:32.280 needs to be the reform needs to be a kind of ubiquitous uh philo-semitism where we realize 0.77

00:42:38.300 actually these jews are kind of higher beings and we should serve them uh and so forth right 0.97

00:42:44.500 yes but of course we can never get there so we have to invent another myth about aliens 0.99

00:42:50.020 essentially that so it has to be another metaphor because the goyim will get irritated at the fact 0.98

00:42:56.000 the jews are superior as they have in the past yeah yeah it's another mask uh yeah i mean what 0.95

00:43:04.720 one quick thing just in in terms of that scene so noah is using the empathy rod 0.98

00:43:12.700 to like demonically possess which is also a a you know time-worn metaphor particularly in the in

00:43:20.960 the catholic church you know they they still have exorcism and and so on they they like that idea of

00:43:26.600 demons uh getting a hold of innocence and and so on uh richard uh i just as an aside before you

00:43:34.400 continue but this is also tapping into uh this kind of conspiracy alien lore that we've had

00:43:43.420 since like you know the 50s where it's like oh yeah there's esp there's uh remote viewing

00:43:50.580 there's out of body experiences there's this ability to possess other humans and so forth

00:43:55.740 but so in other words it's all a lot of the metaphors come from you know ancient mythology

00:44:02.300 it's a kind of recycling invention mythology into this new science fiction um it's a reinvention

00:44:10.320 into a kind of new science fiction you know uh lexicon effectively right but it's it's all

00:44:17.260 ultimately kind of the same thing and it it's both religious you know as you say demonic possession

00:44:23.220 uh mythological but now it's science fiction but it's just a kind of reinvention of these metaphors

00:44:29.340 giving them different names and terms, making it sound more scientific and therefore, you know, science fiction.

00:44:37.240 Yeah. Yeah. And so so Noah is getting in her mind.

00:44:43.800 And when they again, Spielberg shows this to us by having their eyes.

00:44:49.860 The eye becomes this constant metaphor actually going on.

00:44:55.260 and so he you know colin first brown eyes are in jane's head and vice versa he has blue eyes which

00:45:02.260 might also be significant but you know it it could be interesting if colin first character

00:45:09.800 was coded arian like he he is a just total antagonist like his name is

00:45:18.080 uh Esau or Amalek or Apollo or Mark or Marcus you know he's Mars or Apollo attacking uh but it's not

00:45:28.620 that Mark but uh it's not that it's it's a it's a little more subtle because you actually do learn

00:45:36.420 that Noah is a Christian Noah's name is Noah um and he is sort of this extra governmental agency

00:45:43.880 that wants to have all of this knowledge and safe keeping. 0.67

00:45:47.320 We can't even trust presidents with it.

00:45:49.600 We've got to keep it here.

00:45:52.140 But I think it's also like he was using a story from the gospel

00:45:56.820 about how Jesus knew that he had to accept the poison chalice.

00:46:03.500 And he's sort of telling her, you've got to do what you've got to do.

00:46:07.300 You love Christ as much as I do. 0.98

00:46:09.400 We have to protect the flock from this terrible knowledge, and you have to kill Daniel. 0.98

00:46:17.120 Daniel, well, there's tribe of Dan, of course, going on right there, the tribe of the crypto-Jews, the Jews that will bite at the heels and take people by surprise. 0.97

00:46:29.560 That's our novel reading of that, but yes. 0.97

00:46:32.240 Yes, but also just Daniel, the man Daniel from the Bible, who is—

00:46:38.400 They say especially Daniel of the Bible, right?

00:46:40.860 Yes, there's a book named after.

00:46:42.440 After the destruction of the first temple, he maintains Judaism in captivity in Babylon. 0.69

00:46:54.500 So there's some elite figures that are living in the court of Nebuchadnezzar in Babylon and interpreting dreams and doing all sorts of tricks. 0.70

00:47:02.280 They're eventually released by Cyrus, but that comes later.

00:47:06.620 but he's sort of

00:47:08.640 Daniel in this case

00:47:10.580 he's this

00:47:11.620 sort of nerdy guy living

00:47:14.580 in the Catholic Church but he's 0.69

00:47:16.700 Jewish and he's maintaining

00:47:18.360 something. He can talk directly

00:47:20.720 to the aliens actually which I

00:47:22.720 think is very significant.

00:47:24.380 He understands the

00:47:26.660 language of the universe which is what

00:47:28.580 they refer to it but I

00:47:30.160 would say it's Hebrew.

00:47:32.520 He can understand mathematics

00:47:33.920 sort of like

00:47:36.620 or however it's put and it's like mathematical formula that tell you can be translated to

00:47:43.160 english i don't know but it it's just sort of a device to say that he can read that language

00:47:49.600 numerology yeah symbolism numerology as well yeah it reminds us of uh Pythagoreanism and so forth

00:47:58.420 yes that too uh reminded me a little bit of elzaba i believe from wicked uh i she can read 0.56

00:48:07.480 the actual book and the the wizard who's a fraud can't he's almost like a gentile she's anyway i

00:48:13.640 won't go down that road but he he has direct communication with the aliens whereas um fair 0.64

00:48:19.880 child the gentile christ maybe um christians have direct communication with people through and

00:48:28.500 through empathy and so they're both sort of necessary and he was in captivity in war decks

00:48:34.520 for years learned all of these truths and wants to reveal them and um so i i think the the the

00:48:42.320 ultimate sort of mission of the movie is this sort of dyad you know if you were there there there's

00:48:48.700 always two. There is the Jew and the Christian. There is the face that is looking towards the 0.93

00:48:55.020 aliens or the prophets or the martyrs or the Hebrew language itself. And then there is sort

00:49:02.020 of the outside face of love and compassion and communication, which is Fairchild.

00:49:09.380 uh her name is actually margaret interestingly yahweh and aaron or you know even joseph and

00:49:20.140 david using the messiah uh the messiah um the dual messiah concept right um yeah yeah but there

00:49:32.720 is that problem where word x is sort of the it's it's the problematic aspects of the catholic

00:49:40.220 church of has there you know a lot of people who have you know listened to our work or or you know

00:49:46.780 adam green or something they we we recognize and we emphasize the compatibility for lack of a better

00:49:56.040 word i guess here of judaism and christianity both of these things they're ones deriving from the

00:50:01.140 other they're ones referencing the other they these are not opposed and and we emphasize that

00:50:07.240 however has there been have there been episodes of anti-semitism and violence within the catholic

00:50:16.660 church of course there have been many of these scenes pogroms persecutions inquisitions etc

00:50:25.260 and that's what ward x represents right exactly and so it's like he's using he's misusing he

00:50:32.340 doesn't understand the technology that he possesses and he's misusing it in order to

00:50:39.160 attack daniel to try to kill daniel as well and the fact that he fails is significant

00:50:45.980 yeah i i mean the other uh i think that kilner his last name too is a common uh ashkenazi name

00:50:58.000 as well it's a variation of kilner yeah um so i don't think it's i think he's intended to be read

00:51:04.640 even as a jewish character um but yeah i think he ultimately on some level he's a reference to

00:51:11.920 Daniel in the book of Daniel as well, right? He's a prophet, essentially. So not even necessarily

00:51:23.080 intended as a crypto Jew, I guess is my point. And then also, I mean, so there are two, 0.68

00:51:29.220 what you're saying, I think is correct. I mean, they're the twins, Esau and Jacob.

00:51:34.520 uh so on some level they represent that as well uh you know the uh the dual messiah

00:51:42.320 and so forth but i think also that there could be a little bit of a broad gathering

00:51:47.160 theme going on there as well right um so that's interesting i mean i think one character i found

00:51:55.760 interesting was uh hugo wakefield i think yes right this black guy who i think is it's he's

00:52:03.680 intended as an alien who's in disguise i think is what's going on that was my reading that was

00:52:09.820 my reading too is very subtle though um because he was there during the abduction effectively

00:52:16.580 that's the dialogue conveys that he was there during the alien abduction essentially right

00:52:21.680 and she recognizes him at once she's like hello hugo um yes i i do think that that is what's going

00:52:31.260 on but go go go on well so his name wakefield i think so the meaning there i guess would be

00:52:37.740 watch field or you know i or you know vigil field he's a a sentinel of some type watch field that's

00:52:48.720 the last name uh we'll return to the last name but the first name is hugo which means spirit so

00:52:54.580 he's like the spirit of god maybe or in theological terms he represents a spirit

00:53:02.000 but i wonder if the if the play here is he represents the spirit of woke right he's a

00:53:09.040 black guy and he represents the spirit of woke as somehow i don't know facilitating a union between

00:53:16.960 uh this jewish character and this female character right linking them

00:53:21.520 yeah i mean you think woke and it's like political manifestations or just

00:53:26.460 in a kind of deeper like awakening sense um both maybe yeah both maybe but uh i it is interesting

00:53:35.740 i mean to the extent he represents a spirit i mean it's not an accident that they chose an

00:53:41.180 african-american actor so he represents a kind of not just any spirit he represents kind of a

00:53:47.060 black spirit you could argue right yeah um but represents a spirit of multiracial egalitarianism

00:53:55.320 for example and and it's within these conditions uh that you know there would be a union between

00:54:03.100 a jewish woman or a jewish man and a white woman right um so something even represent

00:54:10.740 Hollywood itself because so when you meet him there in the background they're they're they're 0.65

00:54:20.160 creating what looks like a set so they're they're in like a dilapidated industrial part of um Kansas

00:54:28.940 City I guess and um and they're in this big warehouse and you see that they're moving objects

00:54:35.460 around they're creating a sort of synthetic environment and then the payoff occurs at the

00:54:40.320 end of the film where they have recreated down to the thread the childhood home of Margaret Fairchild

00:54:48.160 and so they want to just bring her back um you know and you know in that way if you've ever

00:54:54.760 visited your old home you grew up or something if you the memories come flooding back or your

00:55:00.580 old high school or something like that it is remarkable and and that's sort of what he wants

00:55:05.480 to do but it is sort of it's synthetic i i think maybe even to some degree uh hugo wakefield is a

00:55:13.900 stand-in for spielberg or something who's so adept at just awakening those memories just

00:55:22.420 pulling the nostalgia string and and and taking you back to the that that point of innocence and

00:55:29.900 so on um but again i mean it's it's but it's also revealed to be a totally synthetic fabricated

00:55:37.560 thing as well so there's a little kind of sinister side to it but you go on hugo is actually an alien

00:55:43.920 right so he's a pro i think he was as well although that's not made quite explicit but i i do think he

00:55:49.920 he is yeah um and so he and and therefore you know the animals also can inhabit or appear as

00:56:00.060 humans if they can appear as animals they can appear as humans obviously right yeah and so i

00:56:05.220 think hugo is one of those examples and i i guess the other thing as far as a possible sort of

00:56:11.240 bridegathering theme in the film i mean it seems evident that uh fairchild's gonna leave her

00:56:17.320 boyfriend right yeah that seems and she even takes the guy's car and leaves him at a gas station 0.99

00:56:22.920 um but there's there's all kinds of like relationship issues before that where she

00:56:28.240 wants to move to a bigger market and the guy's too much of a small timer for ultimately and um

00:56:34.880 and and i think it's also meaningful in the script that she it's it's indicated that she

00:56:40.620 goes east right when she leaves him she goes east so i think that this might also kind of

00:56:46.220 contribute to a kind of implicit bridegathering theme now on the other hand um you know uh

00:56:53.300 daniel may end up with uh jade as well but jane jane and margaret seem to be kind of parallel

00:57:00.700 characters that have a kind of similar function in the film and a similar significance they're both

00:57:06.200 ultimately priests of a type right they're they're mediums or a higher power effectively right

00:57:13.780 Yes. So what are your thoughts on that final scene, which was almost the before the disclosure that that scene was sort of the money shot, as it were, maybe in more ways than one, where she's she's taken back psychologically to her childhood when she was abducted.

00:57:43.780 And when she and Daniel were abducted in the sense of being enlightened or initiated, and the animals come to her door.

00:57:56.180 She's she's actually it's very interesting because she's singing. There's there's a little bit of a reference to Snow White, much like there was a reference to Pinocchio and AI where, you know, there's there's Jim in the background, but there's also this this classic fairy tale, Disney fairy tale as well in sort of the background, but kind of the foreground.

00:58:19.020 And she's actually singing, you know, a song from Snow White, which I believe it's, it's someday my friends will come. It's a classic number from the Disney film. And it's, you know, on one level, it's about a young woman yearning for a handsome man to sweep her off her feet, no doubt.

00:58:46.540 But there are also deeply religious resonances in that song of someday Jesus will come.

00:58:57.260 The prince is Jesus who will awaken her.

00:59:00.680 And she's taken with the cardinal again outside.

00:59:06.980 And then there's an invocation of another grim fairy tale, which is Hansel and Gretel.

00:59:12.440 And they go into this house.

00:59:15.120 Now, you know, Grimm's fairy tales are darker than you might imagine, especially the first edition.

00:59:25.420 I actually they reprinted the first edition.

00:59:28.200 I actually owned it.

00:59:29.040 I reread the Snow White tale.

00:59:31.000 And it is a little it's not quite Disney.

00:59:35.900 You know, we we lived in a rougher time, even in Grimm's time, but certainly in the Middle Ages,

00:59:42.740 when those tales are being passed around

00:59:44.720 and compiled by the Grimm, Brothers Grimm.

00:59:48.360 And, but Hansel and Gretel,

00:59:51.680 it's a very sinister story about two kids

00:59:56.020 who are going to be eaten alive

00:59:59.360 by this woman in a house, a witch in a house. 0.99

01:00:03.580 I mean, and here, I think the eating sexual metaphor 0.96

01:00:06.940 is clear.

01:00:08.300 What is this, if not a metaphor of child abuse?

01:00:12.140 i mean it's explicitly child abuse they're being fattened to be put into an oven i mean it's it's

01:00:18.980 sort of horrifying on some level and you see the the children not escaping the house but going into

01:00:26.620 the house and it's in this house that the abduction occurs there's actually a the beds are levitating

01:00:34.620 they go and lie down into beds i mean there is it's all done in a very soft magical way

01:00:41.820 but there are very strong sexual undercurrents to these scenes uh and a those objects the sort

01:00:52.120 of magic wands are put together in a circle almost i saw it almost as a crown of thorns

01:00:58.700 in a sort of abstract way the aliens are above them kind of putting their hands uh

01:01:04.520 there there is a you don't have to read too much into it to see this as sort of a

01:01:10.200 magical disneyified version of child abuse and um that this is the point where these two people

01:01:19.480 The Fairchild Savior and Daniel connector to the Judaic past are both abducted and initiated, educated, enlightened by the aliens.

01:01:35.020 And that memory is so traumatic that they've repressed, again, repressed memories of child sexual abuse is a trope.

01:01:45.400 um there's even to add insult to injury here as well there's a minor theme of butterflies

01:01:54.640 um which you know spielberg's evoking all of this conspiracy theory lore um one of the conspiracy

01:02:03.700 one of these ass pieces of lore is based on fact which is the monarch program that was an offshoot

01:02:12.380 of mk ultra and the monarch butterfly being a sort of symbol and here again we go to uh child 0.87

01:02:21.100 sexual abuse or at the very least brainwashing and all sorts of things like that so i what are

01:02:28.760 you what did you make of all of this no i think that's the correct reading but i you know i think

01:02:36.340 that um you know the fact that it's a summation of all these alien films i think that that's

01:02:43.580 definitely going on in et i think that this film is worth because i think that probably

01:02:48.220 if we watch this film again we'll find more kind of corroboration essentially of what you're saying

01:02:54.880 but yeah i thought that of course um given ai these sort of heteroste themes in ai yes and also

01:03:04.580 in um uh et right you have the alien that's in the closet i think the closet becomes a metaphor

01:03:12.160 um but we we've studied we took some time to study uh the uh the tales in the hebrew bible

01:03:20.480 around elisha and elijah and that's going on there elliot is a um is a form of elijah right

01:03:29.140 So he's a reference to Elijah. And we see that also with Samuel and David and Jonathan. Right.

01:03:37.440 So there is a sexual abuse theme. And even with the word holy in the Hebrew Bible, the most common word for holy, the holy of holies, a different vocalization of that means male cult prostitute. 0.94

01:03:50.260 So this is this is getting at the very core. Of the Abrahamic faith. And so that's I think you're right. 0.53

01:03:58.260 It's something I immediately thought when they said to Margaret Fairchild, they said, oh, we're going to go back to that moment. You're going to remember that moment. And she immediately panicked and became emotional. It was a sexual abuse. It seemed to be referencing sexual abuse, right?

01:04:17.320 and then the hands are sliding up on the face uh so i think that that's correct but i think that i

01:04:24.360 think the clues are also uh i would say maybe better clues appearing et um but yeah this idea

01:04:32.300 of alien abduction you know i mean i don't know i mean i kind of like on some level you sort of

01:04:38.580 have to hand it to uh whether the evil genius or the diabolical mind of like spielberg but he's

01:04:45.260 taken it seems that he's taken these kind of you know sort of peasant folklore myths out of there

01:04:52.240 and like okay well what does the alien abduction mean now and he's given it a new meaning right

01:04:57.040 you know I haven't studied ufology closely enough to know the exact you know the first

01:05:06.180 sort of incident of that meme you know the alien abduction but I think it's pretty it goes back as

01:05:12.960 far as you know this uh ufology lore goes it's one of the the first sort of memes that people

01:05:21.220 are being abducted by aliens and so forth but in close encounters right close even the term

01:05:28.360 close encounters right is a little suggestive but uh but et there's a close they're not being

01:05:35.100 abducted by et but it is an encounter with an alien and implicitly it's a sexual encounter with

01:05:41.780 the alien so and and just the uh to go back to that in in the hebrew bible uh when elijah meets

01:05:51.280 elisha doesn't he lie upon him in the attic isn't that is this the oh yeah yeah we i mean people

01:05:57.580 need to go back and listen to those uh podcasts yes it's just hard to read that as anything other

01:06:04.340 than child abuse to be honest um again unless you're so blinded by your reverence for

01:06:11.140 the holy bible the good book that you think that that could never possibly uh be involved in any

01:06:17.940 story in that uh text i i i don't think there's any other way of reading it and i i guess what

01:06:26.160 what you've said in the past as well is that in in this horrible way pederasty pedophilia child

01:06:32.480 abuse acts as an initiation process and again in a horrible and maybe ironic way binds the

01:06:44.040 servant to the master the the protege to the to the mentor um yeah yeah they're um

01:06:53.440 yeah elijah even his name appears to be a play on uh

01:07:02.680 um aliyah right aliyah that's the term uh when you're uh re-migrating back to israel

01:07:13.100 but uh but the word also means upper room or upper chamber roof chamber but this appears to

01:07:20.240 be a kind of meeting place, both for Alicia and Elijah, where the sexual abuse occurs.

01:07:26.820 So that, you know, in E.T., the metaphor is updated with the closet, right? Because we have

01:07:34.640 this, we have a more modern metaphor of homosexuals being in a closet, right? So maybe that's 1.00

01:07:44.940 what's going on uh in et but so the encounter is in in a closet but both are implied as hidden

01:07:51.600 spaces essentially like the attic where you could go and abuse a child uh woody allen supposedly

01:07:57.640 abused a child in the attic right um i don't know if that's another witch hunting case or whatever

01:08:04.800 but um so goes the story um so yeah i mean look i think that that's just part of the abraham

01:08:14.900 faith and i i think that honestly i don't think anyone knows the abrahamic faith better than

01:08:21.260 spielberg yeah right i think he's encoding all these things basically uh and he he's it seems

01:08:28.700 that he's sort of intently making himself a scribe of a new religion essentially a new religion based

01:08:34.940 on uh abrahamism uh which is also based on these ufos and so forth you know one that could that

01:08:42.880 he's in indicating can be also compatible with existing religions like christianity and so forth

01:08:48.260 yeah uh so in any case go on that i i uh well unless you want to finish your thought i know

01:08:57.320 no i yeah yeah i i had some thoughts about the final it's not really the final act it's sort of

01:09:04.220 the the climax of of the film where they they go to kcxe station uh there might be even a little

01:09:14.180 more coding going on with that name but there there there is the let me let me make a final

01:09:18.860 point though because the point i've made a bunch of times but it's worth just re-emphasizing in

01:09:24.320 this episode um so sexual abuse we know is a huge problem in the catholic church

01:09:31.380 and and also it's a problem among jews right so especially among the orthodox jews orthodox jews

01:09:41.580 i guess there's you know these these sort of whistleblowers that report that like up to 50

01:09:46.060 of the kids have been sexually abused we're not about we don't want to compare you know who's 0.98

01:09:52.460 worse the catholics to the jews it's fucking irrelevant right but here the the thing is though 0.99

01:09:58.320 it does appear to be more a feature of the religion rather than a bug and it's encoded 0.98

01:10:03.960 at the symbolic you know mythological symbolic level essentially um so i mean that's the the

01:10:13.560 only point that i'm going to make uh or just to kind of emphasize the point that we've already

01:10:17.560 made yes it's initiation um yeah it's how it's how the religion is passed on ultimately yeah i

01:10:25.620 I mean, you have a core. And I guess the way we can think about it is maybe the thinking is something like, you know, through this kind of intergenerational sexual connection, you form a kind of abusive fealty, right?

01:10:41.200 It's a kind of Stockholm syndrome or whatever that gives coherence or creates a greater sort of coherence, tribal coherence.

01:10:51.600 And maybe this happens at the core of the religion where a great number of the people are basically oblivious. 1.00

01:10:58.120 They're sussmen. We're just like, you know, I mean, think of the sussmen among the Catholics. 1.00

01:11:02.860 It's very obvious people will defend they will die on that hill. Right. 1.00

01:11:07.500 So right wing Catholics who, you know, are just normies who are just like, oh, yeah. 1.00

01:11:13.920 oh they're just going after the church with this sexual abuse thing because it's like some jewish 0.55

01:11:19.560 conspiracy or some you know or whatever they it's the liberal media they have some idea but no it's 1.00

01:11:25.880 actually there is sexual abuse going on in the catholic church but they're sussmen they're the 0.77

01:11:31.200 equivalent of uh they're the gentile sussmen they're outside of this uh the circle of knowers

01:11:37.300 essentially you know yes but yeah i think that that is what's going on basically yeah and

01:11:43.980 spielberg knows it right um you know i don't know anything about i mean i i don't think that there's

01:11:50.760 any sexual scandals around spielberg though i think the guy lives a pretty like normie life

01:11:55.560 as far as i know i mean maybe you know maybe the guy will appear in some epstein files or who knows

01:12:00.200 but i think he lives a pretty norm normie life but nevertheless there actually have been some

01:12:06.000 accusations but there's never been real evidence and and so you know there there are accusations

01:12:12.200 about all any figure of any success there's some someone's going to make an accusation so

01:12:17.240 yeah i i think i think what you're what you're saying and i agree with it we're not accusing

01:12:24.280 spielberg of anything and he might very well have a perfectly boring you know sex life we're not

01:12:32.260 But that doesn't affect our argument at all. 0.65

01:12:35.940 What we are saying is that within the Jewish tradition and Christian tradition, there is this terrible tradition of initiation through child abuse.

01:12:52.060 And someone who Spielberg is a knower, he would recognize this, even if never partaking in it himself. 0.66

01:13:02.260 Yeah, I mean, it was true among the Greeks, of course, as well, more explicitly, in the Dorian region in particular.

01:13:09.180 And this affected even the cult of Apollo in the Dorian region, especially among the Spartans, right?

01:13:14.480 Yes.

01:13:16.860 So it's not, and I guess, so there, presumably, it served the same purpose.

01:13:22.680 The Theban band, you know, Thebes, that famously defeated the Spartans, were thought to be basically, you know, a group of men that were bred this way, you know, as boy lovers and so forth.

01:13:39.600 But they were a cohesive military unit, right?

01:13:43.440 This is the mythology.

01:13:44.680 I mean, you know, philosophers also criticized the practice, saying it led to the opposite, ultimately.

01:13:51.700 It led to weakness and coward, cowardliness and unmanliness and so forth. But, but I think that the theory behind it is that it does lead to a kind of religious fealty, essentially, and cohesiveness, right? These kind of, you're thick as thieves, you're short, you're sharing these kind of sins, evils, and terrible secrets, right?

01:14:13.900 yeah um and to your point to your point that these people understand how this works like

01:14:20.700 spielberg was is obviously involved in like what's known as the study group or the mega group which

01:14:27.060 i'm sure you're well aware of like the les wexner and the bronfman family uh sort of like syndicate

01:14:36.360 of like philanthropy you know what i'm talking about no i i've never heard of that before

01:14:42.160 less okay wexner obviously was involved with epstein and so on right he founded something

01:14:48.640 in the 90s that was later referred to as the study group or sometimes called the mega group

01:14:54.600 and it was basically these influential uh jews in different industries who would get together 0.64

01:15:01.820 to sort of influence culture uh you know and sort of like meet in the back room and decide that they

01:15:08.320 were going to do this thing or that thing and spielberg is a prominent member and you know

01:15:13.640 was known as being part of this and whether he like ever partook in any impropriety i'm not even

01:15:21.900 venturing to speculate on but just like some of these people were surely doing like sexually

01:15:30.040 untoward things and uh and you know on some level i think he he does understand what like

01:15:37.440 what ritualistic child abuse means for the jewish faith or within judaism yes yeah well

01:15:46.660 i mean and probably richard would agree with me i mean it's not like we're not letting the guy

01:15:53.260 off the hook in any way we we don't know what the guy's done and probably maybe no one will ever

01:15:59.100 know or history will never know right i mean that's the problem with this particular crime

01:16:03.160 is that it is basically a secret crime

01:16:05.000 that people frequently get away with.

01:16:08.860 But what I would say, though,

01:16:10.900 is that he's endorsing it ideologically, right?

01:16:15.320 So it's almost kind of worse.

01:16:17.160 He's endorsing it ideologically

01:16:18.860 and he's promoting it subconsciously

01:16:21.080 through his use of symbol in film, right?

01:16:26.360 In the way that it's promoted

01:16:28.100 by the Abrahamic faiths more broadly.

01:16:31.280 so there was something even more the guy could be asexual the guy could be normie doesn't even

01:16:38.040 matter right completely and i think i think i can just hear the criticism already of your reading

01:16:45.260 something nefarious into it like et in the closet like oh like you know i'm sure that that criticism

01:16:52.640 exists but i i agree with your reading i think there is and you just get so much cooperation

01:17:00.780 of you know it's like if there are only one film you're reading too much into it you get

01:17:06.600 cooperation from the hebrew bible you get cooperation from other films ai i i don't know

01:17:12.380 anyone could look at ai seriously and not think that there are not strong strong themes of child

01:17:19.400 abuse and in the film ai there's so much circumstantial evidence that you sort of can't

01:17:26.140 deny it at some point.

RadixJournal - June 14, 2026

Disclosure Day (2026)

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